Letter to Cam

For today's blogpost, I've decided to just include excerpts from my letter to Cami:

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Dear Soeur G.,
Happy P-day!    So, first thing's first.   I am actually in town this Friday, which means that I can be much more responsive today than I've been the last two P-days.   It's my intention to keep the afternoon pretty open, so that if you need my response to anything, hopefully I can be on it pretty quickly.  

Second, why on earth is your cell phone not set to go automatically to "do not disturb" at night?    As you can imagine, almost nothing is happening with your cell phone currently.   It's used for Ellie's daily snapchats, taking pictures once in a while, and the occasional pokemon adventure (for Ellie), but generally it stays put away in the top of my closet the vast majority of the time.   So, imagine my surprise when last night your phone starts ringing in the middle of the night!  Dad and I have had our phones set to automatic do not disturb for quite a while now, so we're used to never even hearing a mail ping, yet alone a full blown ring.    It took quite a while to get to it at the top of the closet and of course we missed it (and we assume it was a wrong number anyway), but, man, it sure was hard to sleep again after that jolt of adrenaline.    It is now set to "do not disturb" and will stay that way for at least 18 months!

Random DC number that called on YOUR cell phone in the middle of the night.

It's your third p-day today, which means that you're almost half-way done with the MTC now!

The tomatoes are growing like crazy in our garden and we have been thoroughly enjoying them in all their fresh deliciousness.  I know I already told you this, but I'm totally obsessing about the panzanella I'm going to make for the missionaries for tomorrow night's dinner!    Hopefully there will be lots of great families in France that will feed you freshly grown produce straight from their gardens!    Or at least that there'll be lots of little markets where you can buy fresh produce and eat simple, healthful meals....like panzanella.  :)

Perfectly imperfect tomatoes from our garden.

Today we picked up a bushel of fresh peaches that we ordered straight from an orchard.  I was quite excited to dive into dehydrating and jam making tonight, but, alas, not a single one of them is ripe yet.   I am hoping that they don't all ripen this weekend, which will make it harder to give them the attention they need before they go bad...which happens far too quickly with peaches.

The bushel of peaches we ordered came in this cute basket.   Too bad none of them are ripe!

Random tidbit:  I was going through a box in the basement and came across my journal from my freshman year at BYU.   Some of it is pretty mortifying, but ask me nicely sometime in the future and I might let you read bits of it.  :)

My visiting teachers came over today and shared a message about strengthening families.  It's interesting that this has been the topic du jour lately, as it's the theme of our youth lessons for the month, as well as our sacrament meetings.    

“The home is to be God’s laboratory of love and service,” said President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Our discussion really focused on the word, "laboratory" and how apt that seems for us as parents.    We're constantly trying to figure out what "chemical reactions" work and don't work with each kid and it's an ongoing process of experimenting---with every day things, like discipline and how to interact with each child, but also spiritual experimenting and learning how each child feels the spirit in their lives.     Anyways, it made me think of how imperfect we've been as parents and how impressive it is that you (and your siblings) are where you are, in spite of us!   How grateful I am for the atonement and forgiveness and for a lot of "lab notes" along the way--in the scriptures, from our leaders, from other people who've been down our path before, etc.  

And it made me think about how you're embarking onto a journey into a giant French speaking laboratory soon.    A place where you'll have the opportunity to experiment on His word and learn to do His work in your own way.   In a  way that only you can do.  

We love you and are so proud of you.   Have a wonderful week!  

Love,
Mom


PS  Here are a few other random pictures:

This is a lovely flower we found while out on one of our evening walks.

 

This is what Emma will wear in next week's production of the "Wizard of Oz".  
She is Auntie Em.  

This life-size poster at the library almost gave me a heart attack when I saw it out of the corner of my eye and for half-second thought that a group of people were glaring at me.    Ellie, of course, loved it!  

Sweet Labors

Part 1

After almost 20 years of marriage, Glen and I have established many traditions in our family.  Some, like our Christmas traditions, are pretty run-of-the-mill.  On Christmas Eve, for example, we have our Christmas devotional,  then we open our pajamas, put out cookies for Santa, and send the kids to bed.  

 Other traditions, like Glen making a special crepe breakfast for everyone's birthdays and the kids making a candy bar note for Glen on Father's Day,  are a little more uniquely ours.  

I don't even remember how they started, but I'm assuming it happened once and when the next birthday or Father's Day rolled around, someone said, "That was fun! Let's do it again!"

After reflecting back, I think that's exactly how our Labor Day tradition of going raspberry picking started.  We did it one year and in future years realized that Labor Day always seems to be right in the heart of raspberry season and that it was fun not to have to wonder what fun thing we should do with Daddy at home for the day!

This year, as always, we went with grand intentions of picking enough berries to make several batches of raspberry jam afterward.  We had invited friends to join us and were immediately disappointed (and a little embarrassed) when we arrived and realized that the picking was not going to be good. 

The raspberries were very picked over... 

and what few we got tended to be a little mushy and bug-filled.  After picking in the hot sun for about 45 minutes, we barely had half a bucketful. 

After resigning myself to the fact that I wouldn't be able to make jam this year,  someone had the idea of trying out the blackberry field to see if it was any better picking.  

On the way to the blackberries, we noticed the farm workers changing where the raspberry sign pointed to.  They were opening a new field! 

We rushed and were some of the first to arrive to fields bursting with perfectly ripe and beautiful raspberries! 

Within half an hour, we had about 10x more berries than we'd collected in the other field...

 and as was immediately noticed by the kids, they were also much sweeter and juicier berries!

We were happy that it ended well and were glad to have shared the day with friends

and critters alike.  :) 

Now we are enjoying the fruits of our labors with lots of jam on homemade bread!

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Part 2: 

This isn't a tradition for us (yet), but this year we also went peach picking on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.  We went to Charlottesville early before the BYU game and the tailgating party just so we could go to the beautiful Carter Mountain Orchards.

When my sister, H, was a law student at UVA, she introduced to this gorgeous farm situated on top of a mountain overlooking Charlottesville.  We like going there as much for the views as for the plenteous fruits!  Our peaches did not look very pretty after sitting in the hot car for an entire day, but we still managed to eat a bunch and make a batch of half-peach/half-raspberry jam!


All in all, other than BYU's disappointing loss, it was a sweet Labor Day weekend spent making memories and enjoying time with family and friends!


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